Thoughts
by DeathFrisbee221
Summary: Henrietta had been trapped in her mind for as long as she could remember. Life was pretty mundane - at least if you could call being a crippled mutant living in the midst of a society on the brink of war 'mundane'. And yet she is offered a choice: to help save the world from a nameless threat, whilst discovering, who, or what, she really is. Review please!
1. Chapter 1

**Right off, I'm just going to apologise for any mistakes, as I am notoriously lazy when it comes to editing. This story was one of those brain children you let run away with you regardless of plot inconsistencies, and so whilst I probably will go back through and iron out all the creases when I have time, for now it might be a little rough around the edges. I hope you enjoy it regardless!**

Nowadays, being classed as a mutant was enough of a problem.

This was made doubly worse by being blind.

If being led by the hand for my entire life wasn't enough to single me out, a faceless person matching me step for step as they guided me through the hubbub of noise and fumbling bodies, then the rumours that spread of my gift were sure to attract double the unwanted attention. Not that I was particularly aware of having any sort of talent to begin with; it was only when I caught snatches of whispered conversations not meant for my ears, felt the press of silence on my back that I had learned meant that people were staring at me. Ironic that, how the only one unable to watch my every action was myself.

I guess it began when I was smaller, younger, less accustomed to the constant cloud of black before my eyes, the endless void that try as I might I would never be able to penetrate. I had to rely on my other senses – sound mostly, and sensation through groping fingertips. I had to adapt, evolve even so as to better make my way through this world. It was strange thinking about people who could see, people who saw in colour, when the most I could ever know of their fortune was the names of such hues. Purple, blue, green, yellow. They were meaningless to me in my world of black. So when I began to feel emotions that weren't my own, I merely assumed that this was normal, that this was surely another sense that my family had neglected to notify me of. Or perhaps it was an effect of my blindness, and the sharpening of the only other senses that remained to me had awoken this new way of feeling the world around me.

It could be unbearable. It was worst when I was outside, and among others; then my head would begin to ache from the intensity of all those feelings, every raw emotion laid bare for me to feel myself as if for the first time. They would whine with a shrill fervour, each one clamouring for my attention, until I could barely think, and leaned once more upon the tangible shadow at my elbow for support.

It was the consistency of such experiences that led me to conclude that I was feeling other people's emotions, somehow tuning in on their innermost workings like their minds were just sound waves, each layered upon one another in a dizzying web of alternate frequencies. And yet the moment I used this exhilarating new skill, I was met by a wall of confusion and suspicion. On asking my mother why she was so sad, she refused to talk to me for two days, my only contact with her being through the pulsing waves of her terror that would follow me no matter what room I was in, never ceasing, not even in sleep so strong was her revulsion. My horror at this sort of reaction was why I never spoke of it again, not even when the constant press of other people's souls upon my own grew too painful for me to bear on my own.

And then that's when the words came.

I would hear them clearly, distinctly, as if spoken only a few feet from my ear. So naturally I would respond as I did when kindly passers-by ventured to offer me a few words, not realising that these were like the emotions that only I seemed able to detect, that they were silent, mind-words, not ear-words. I must have looked like I was mad, talking enthusiastically with thin air, head snapping from side to side when I detected a new voice or a new tone, shifting my attention to this fresh branch of conversation. I unconsciously realised that it was a little strange that when I responded to whatever snippet floated my way, I never once received a parrying answer. But I thought nothing of it. For once in my life I felt busy, included, a fellow fish of the shoal that streamed around me. At school, I was lonely – no one wanted to know the cripple in the corner – but it seemed to me that people were finally taking notice, and going so far as to willingly speak with me. I might even go so far as to say that at this point, I was relatively happy.

Meanwhile, outside of my bubble of ignorance, things only got worse. My family only became more confused and worried for my welfare. I worked my way through a record string of volunteer guides, each one finally cracking after perhaps the third of fourth day from the sheer embarrassment. Some made an attempt to distract me from the 'mind voices' with their own never-ending line of gossip, which worked for a time. One or two even tried to fill in for the owners of these voices, but this was a vain attempt – the voices filtering in from the outside each had their own distinguishable note and feel; some would brush the surface of my mind with the gentle touch of velvet, whilst others would send me reeling with their concrete intensity. Plus, I was now accustomed to not receiving an answer, and merely skimming from one topic to another like a stone across a lake, never stopping, and never settling.

At this point my mother could no longer take it, and I was sent to a therapist. The 'voices' were never quite as bad when I was alone; I could catch whispers and mutters, tiny fragments of words that echoed with a magnitude that made me feel like I was stood in a room so big that even if I could see the walls and ceiling, it would be beyond my comprehension, but due to their vague quality, I had the feeling that they weren't meant to be heard, and so I wouldn't answer.

For about ten minutes, the therapist was puzzled as to why I'd been sent to him – I could feel that much. I answered his questions politely, and I didn't appear to be communicating with voices of my own creation. But then it all went horribly wrong, and my blissful lack of knowledge was brought to a horrible stop. Perhaps that was the best; it meant I could try to hide, to duck away from the terrible reputation that my abilities burdened me with.

I can vividly remember there was a silence, under which I could hear a faint scribbling. Doubtless the doctor was scribbling down a few notes. By now I could sense a faint tendril of sadness reaching out to me; by tentatively feeling my way along it, I concluded that it was coming from the doctor himself. It was an invisible cord linking the two of us together, a faint path that it seemed only I could tread, and yet here was this unfathomable sadness that I longed to know the cause of. It crushed me, winding around my neck so that I could barely breathe, it refused to let me go no matter how hard I wrestled with it in the dark.

"Why are you sad?"

There was a weighty silence, and then a thud as the pencil and clipboard fell to the floor. The pressure upon my throat lifted a little, but breathing was still an effort, especially considering what I'd said after all those years of silence.

"I... I'm sorry?" There was a slight break in the doctor's voice, but years of practise allowed him to pretend that nothing was wrong.

I pressed my lips together, and said nothing.

Then, distinctly if a little quieter, I heard him speak. _My close friend died._

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"What?" The professional veneer of his voice was beginning to crack. I heard him cough, as if trying to regain control. "Is someone talking to you now?"

It was my turn to be confused. "Yes – you are," I said slowly.

A barely concealed sigh. "I mean inside your head. What are they saying?"

"No." I frowned. "You're talking to me. You did just now. You said a close friend had died."

A stunned silence. The tendril had completely withdrawn, and instead I was surrounded by an icy suspicion that made me shiver.

"How..."

"But you just said it." I was panicking now. What was going on? "You did, I heard you!"

"I didn't say anything." His voice quivered with emotion.

"It was your voice-"

 _This is freaky. Why does she keep insisting that I said anything? How does she know about Michael?_

"Michael's your friend, isn't he?" I replied, desperate to prove it to him. I was right, he was mistaken. After spending my entire life relying on my ears as my lifeline to the world that I wasn't allowed to see, I couldn't let him announce that they'd been wrong this whole time. "The one who died. You told me, I heard you. Why do you keep insisting that I'm lying when I can hear you?" My voice filled my ears, an infantile shriek that was close to tears.

"I've got to, uh, go and check some notes, okay?" Then there was the abrupt slam of a door, and I was let alone, isolated, in the darkness, my only anchor the chair I sat on as the rest of my world collapsed around my feet.

I never visited him again. As far as I could tell he didn't want me in his clinic. Whenever anyone mentioned his name after that, I couldn't help but remember the tug of his sadness, as well as the bitter after-taste of the antipsychotic medicine he put me on, although I quickly stopped taking it as every dose made me violently sick, and left me with a blinding headache. For several hours my own pain would drive the pain of others away, and I could hear nothing for my own internal screaming.

But my problem was made all too clear by that encounter, my ability laid bare for all to see. My own _family_ remained at a wary distance, frightened of what their daughter could do. And I was frightened too. Barely fourteen, and I could trust nothing that I heard. I learned that some words were ear-words and some were mind-words, some everyone heard, and others only I could understand. I had great difficulty telling the difference, however, and gradually I spoke less and less for fear of slipping up. I developed a system of speaking only when tapped on the arm or hand, but preferred to spend hours by myself, interpreting the meaning of Braille letters through my fingertips. Having someone read to me was still a rare pleasure, and one that was safe enough to engage in; I was not required to speak, only to listen, and even then I had the reassurance that these were ear-words, safe words, dictated to me from the solidity of printed pages from which they would never stray.

Naturally, tongues waggled, despite my mother's attempt to sweep me under the carpet. I was all too painfully aware of her shame, and her correlating fear that the neighbours should get wind of any sort of news at all. I was relieved for any sort of privacy she could afford me, but it was no use. School got worse – instead of being the cripple no one wanted to know, I was the freak that everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of. _Roll up, roll up, a pound a go._ The teachers were no better, and instead did their best to ignore me. And everywhere I went, eyes followed, I could _feel_ them, I could hear the curiosity and hatred everywhere I turned, day and night, through my window, through the walls. It never stopped, not even within my own home – I think the fear that wafted from my own family was the hardest to swallow.

The news reports began to stream through the following year – a year for me to melt into the background, for things to die down. A year to learn, not that I knew how. Life had settled back to relative normalcy. When you jump into a puddle, you can feel the surface thundering against your boots, and it's possible to picture the chaos that that single step caused. But then you stand still, and the splashing stops. The water settles around your ankles peaceably, even if it still laps at your toes, the skin over the top still wrinkling now and then with every minuscule movement. That was life for me – a little unsteady at times, but manageable.

The reports made it so much worse.

 _Mutants_. That's what they called people like me. At least, that's how I came to see myself. I could do things that no one else could; I'd secretly toyed with the label of 'superhuman'. But it seemed that the press had got there first. And it stuck.

Whenever mutants came up on the news, my mother was quick to change channels, and my father quick to change the subject. Practise and fear had worked quickly on them, on all of us. And yet I'd managed to gather scraps of information together into a raggedy whole, and I wasn't quite sure whether what it told me was entirely reassuring.

I wasn't the only one. There were more like me out there, isolated individuals with fantastic powers that defied the possible. For once, I wasn't alone. No matter how far away they were, we belonged together, and for a while I sustained the belief that I wouldn't be safe unless I found them, even joined them. I quickly ditched the idea when I realised how I wouldn't be able to do a thing without help; for the millionth time I cursed my lack of sight, and how it rendered me as dependent as a child who hadn't yet learned to walk.

Things got worse at school. The other kids seem to relish in the fact that they'd been handed the weapons to hurt me with on a silver plate. People jeered and spat; even now, when my tongue was most guarded, they still somehow found me out and made sure that justice was served. My parents rarely spoke to me, and I found easier to just sit upstairs where I knew no one would come looking. Books were no help, not against the constant gnawing of abuse at the back of my skull.

I don't know how I managed the next two years. Somehow I managed to scrape through whilst outside the storm only swelled and grew, feeding off the fear of those who couldn't understand. As I grew older, my _mutation_ grew with me, and became harder to disguise and control. There were times when I could see straight into another person's head and hear everything – not just the snatches of thought suspended before their eyes, but _everything._ I could read their stories as easily as reading a book with my fingertips. Not only that, but I seemed to be able to transmit my own thoughts; every now and then when I was especially careless, I would sense someone stiffen as a foreign thought wormed its way inside their head.

Once, and only once, I found myself behind someone's eyes, wearing someone else's skin. I could _see_.

I finally understood what green and blue and yellow looked like. I saw the beauty of the sun and the unending scale of the sky. I saw the hard pavement beneath my feet, and the strange faces bobbing past my shoulders, the shops, the cars, the movement of the world, the way people's lips moved as they spoke. I even saw myself: a tall girl with tangled black hair and staring eyes clinging awkwardly to the elbow of her mother, my mother. Turned out my favourite shirt was red. Strange how little I knew about some of the most intimate of my possessions.

And my mother. I saw her for the first time in all seventeen years of my life, saw her short black hair and weary brown eyes, the wrinkles that aged her before her time, the way people skirted past her with looks of disgust because of the mutant beside her. And I felt sick. She didn't deserve me. No one did. She deserved so much better, deserved a safe home with friends and happiness and no carpet to have to smuggle secrets beneath, no dark corners within which a monster was concealed.

With a gasp, I was once more in my own body, and the familiar black crawled in once more. I was left with the impression of how achingly blue the sky was.

"Are you alright?" Her voice was so familiar, that for a moment I hated it.

"I'm fine. Just..." I hesitated, knowing how crazy I was about to sound. "I understand why blue is your favourite colour."


	2. Chapter 2

Today was different.

I could feel it the moment I woke up, right down to the familiar touch of my parents' minds. Something was going on, I was sure of it. I pushed inquisitively at my mother's mind for anything new, and immediately heard as clear as day what I was looking for.

 _New guide today._

I didn't reply – I knew this was a mind-thought – but felt my way to the table, and took the spoon offered to me, ruminating on this news. Who in their right mind would want to be my guide?

"Darling," my mother began. "I've got some news for you-"

"I have a new guide?"

"Yes." Even now she couldn't keep the note of surprise out of her voice. "It's rather strange. Apparently a volunteer turned up out of nowhere, and seemed very keen to take you on in particular."

I frowned. Very strange. I hadn't used a guide in a year or so, instead relying on my mother and a cane. No one had wanted to take me on, despite my mother's best attempts at persuasion. When your name was followed by the 'm' word, no one wanted to know. Recently, mutants had been expressly forbidden entry to certain shops and restaurants, and I'd caught my father saying, or thinking, bitterly that it wouldn't be long before mutants were made to wear certain badges on their clothes, and shipped off to labour camps. The possibility of segregation seemed to take pride of place inside his head, and I was too afraid to ask him what that would mean.

It was all based on fear – everyone was scared. Humans were scared of mutants, mutants were scared of humans, the government was scared of the general population, and all the government officials were scared of each other. Not to mention everyone's communal fear of the press. Fear was what initially brought humans together around the fire in the cold of the night, and it seemed that fear would be what drove us apart again.

"You don't have to use this guide," she continued. "What with the attitude towards m-m-mu..." She mumbled at the word as a horse might do at a particularly sharp bit, but try as she might she couldn't get the word out. She couldn't say what I was. "Towards _that lot_ nowadays," she eventually finished, with what I imagined to be a decisive nod.

"Mum, it's not fair on you; you work far too hard," I insisted. "It'll be nice to get out. I'll be fine." I was lying through my teeth. It was far from alright, walking with an unknown, essentially placing my life in the hands of a stranger who most likely hated me and everything I stood for. And yet... A special request. That was highly irregular; usually you put your name down on a list, and then were assigned randomly. And yet all I could see was the memory of my mother's time-torn face, and the weary glint in her eye, and that decided it.

I stumbled back upstairs to change, and that was when the doorbell rang. I froze, a shirt halfway over my head, and waited, ears straining for any sort of sound, mind reaching out ready to catch a glimpse of this newcomer.

The door was opened, and I could hear blurry attempts at polite chatter as they no doubt waited for my arrival. There was my mother's mind, blue and pulsing – ever since that day I'd only ever seen her thoughts as the colour of the sky – and then...

That mind was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was, in a word, unbreachable. There were steel walls thrown up around it on all sides, and despite some experimental pokings, I couldn't work my way in. I wasn't even sure if they were conscious of my attempts, whether the walls were able to keep my thoughts out whilst letting his or her own musings come and go as they pleased. I felt a little aggrieved that this mystery person was able to evade my abilities this easily, but there was underlying twinge of respect there too, an urge to ask how the devil they were doing it.

I hurriedly finished dressing, ran a brush through my hair, and made my way downstairs with as much grace as possible, my cane clasped tightly in one hand.

"Hen, at last!" My mother sounded a little off, and for the life of me I couldn't read the puffs of emotion she was giving off like a steam engine. "This is Charles, your guide for today."

A hand clasped my own firmly. "A pleasure," a voice said, presumably his, for I didn't recognise it at all. And still, nothing. Not so much as a thread of emotion for me to pick up. It seemed that this time I would have to rely on normal methods to work out this Charles properly.

"Nice to meet you." I tried to sound cheery – I had a feeling my usual, blank tone wouldn't go so well.

Mother tried to steer the conversation. "Have you ever guided before?"

"No, it's my first time, but I'm sure we'll be fine." He gently directed my hands to his elbow. "Shall we?"

I turned my head to where I was sure my mother was, and gave her my best reassuring smile. "We'll be back soon."The unspoken problem was that I was no longer quite sure of myself. If I could have read this guy to see what he was up to, then I would have felt far more confident than I was clinging to the arm of a could-be mutant-hunter. The mind block only further proved that he knew what he was up against, making it all the more likely that he was going to win whatever sort of game we were playing.

Or maybe he really was just a kindly volunteer. I couldn't tell.

We stepped out onto the street, and set off at slow amble, more than adequate for me to keep pace with him. In fact, I ended up dragging him along a little in my haste; I didn't have anywhere in particular to go, but I liked to walk fairly briskly.

"So what do I call you?" I'd finally managed to place the accent as English, and not just English, but smooth, and well-cultivated. I would have guessed a man of education, but without being able to see him, it remained a guess.

"Um... Well, mum calls me Hen, and dad calls me Henrietta, so anything goes really."

"What about Henry?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Isn't that a boy's name? Besides, that's a third name I'd have to keep track of – it's not an easy task!"

He chuckled. Okay, so he had a sense of humour – killer was looking less and less likely.

We were in the middle of a crowd now, and I had my cane out so as to clear myself a wide berth. Not that that was necessary; I could feel people skirting away from me, the familiar dirty looks. My mind was crammed full of words again, sentences left unspoken flying through the air so loudly that it was hard to make out what Charles was saying. I adjusted my grasp on his elbow.

I caught a trace of something, a brief whiff that lasted maybe a second or two, the sort you get when walking past the doorway of a coffee shop or bakery. For a moment I could have sworn it was anger, and then it was gone, and I was left grasping vainly at the air with my mind, sure that Charles had let his guard down briefly. Or maybe I was mistaken; there were so many people around me, it was impossible to keep track of whose thoughts were whose.

"Would you like to sit down?"

I nodded assent, and I was led to what felt like a bench.

The moment I sat down, I felt the abrasive shove of a mind right beside me, one that smelt of burning and metal. The wave of bitter anger caught me completely by surprise, and I gasped for breath like a landed fish, for a moment unaware of the concern of my companion. I briefly heard him speak in a lowered, chiding tone, and then the anger subsided. I could still feel it coiled about this new person like a writhing snake, but it no longer overwhelmed me, and infected me with its poisonous wrath. For a moment I sat trembling, before I was fully able to compose myself.

"Are you quite alright?" Charles enquired.

I nodded, and tried to school my features into something blankly pleasant. "Yes, just a little stomach upset." I forced a smile.

"How rude of me, I've neglected to introduce you to my friend Erik."

"Hello." A new voice, gruff and with the same glass-sharp quality of Charles'. There was an awkward pause, and then a rough hand grasped mine – causing me to flinch at the unexpected touch – before pulling away the instant we made contact. A quick judgement was made: this was a man who didn't care for company. I wasn't quite sure how I jumped to such a conclusion, or how I made it with such confidence, but I think it was the skittishness of his mind that gave it away, the way in which it flickered and shrank nervously almost as if he could sense my constant watch of his thoughts. And that anger, it acted as a wall, a defence. If I got too close, there was a sudden flare that sent me reeling. A warning: get out of my head.

Alarm bells were going off now. He knew. I was sure of it. And not only that, but he knew how to deflect my attacks, as did Charles. Did they both know?

"Yes."

"Sorry?"

"Yes. We know." Charles sounded embarrassed, even apologetic. "Sorry, I should have told you immediately."

My instant defence was to play dumb. "I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean. You know what exactly?"

"You know perfectly well-" Erik's voice was cut with menace, and I shrank back from him. This was a man I instinctively didn't trust; why Charles had decided to invite him along was beyond me. And it hadn't been a coincidence, he'd been waiting, and now I was hemmed in on both sides by two alien minds beyond my control.

"Erik," Charles warned. Then I felt his hand on my own, and could almost imagine his eyes flickering over my face. More than that, I could distinctly _feel_ it, an intense stare that didn't stop at skin-level. "It's all right, you're perfectly safe; if we wished to harm you, then we would have taken you somewhere quieter." Hmm. The logic was faultless.

I turned my blank, searching eyes to him; I had an uncanny ability to deliver a hard, Paddington stare despite my lack of vision. "Who are you?"

He sighed. "A friend, I promise."

"Really, you think a promise from a stranger is going to make any difference?" I pushed his hand away, and shakily stood up, cane in hand like a sword. "It's been nice meeting you, but I think I'll be leaving."

"Wait!" Charles grabbed my wrist with the firm intention that I didn't leave. And then the strangest thing happened.

His walls _dissolved_. Not a trace of defence was left. I could see his mind, shining bright and golden, almost blinding me. I'd never sensed a mind like it before. Warily, I let my mind drift closer, gently probing his, but all too aware that he could sense me, unlike everyone else. I remained cautious, lightly brushing the edges of his consciousness, and almost in response, as if in a peace offering, memories began to flit before me that weren't my own. Real, tangible images unfurled of a large, drafty house full of loneliness and overwhelming silence. A small blue girl with scales for skin. A dusty library, packed with books, seen from behind a desk spread with papers that oozed importance, a loud bar buttery with golden light and the stench of beer, a pale face bobbing in a turbulent sea, hair slick to his head and eyes wild with a ravenous hunger. And I was there too, tossed in sea spray and a howling wind, cold water pressing in on all sides, clawing for air, bubbles and blackness, need to breathe, screaming threatening to shatter my skull, breathe, breathe, breathe, _Erik!_

I reeled back, winded. For a moment, I was still trapped in the water, pulled down by the weight of it all, so cold that I would never feel warm again, a deep-bone chill at the never-ending screaming...

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realise you'd be so badly affected..." A hand grasped my arm, and I was hauled into a sitting position. I must have been sitting in the middle of the pavement; I could feel the reverberations of the footsteps around me, the occasional brush of fabric. Then I was standing, a little unsteady, but with a hand on my back to prevent me from falling again. I was guided back to the bench.

"What..." It took me a moment to find words. "What did you do?"

"I showed you a few of my own memories. I thought it might help you to trust us, but I had no idea..." He paused as if looking for words. "Your mind is exceptionally sensitive; you became trapped in my memories as if you were experiencing them yourself in the present. I've never known anyone to be affected in that way with the exception of myself."

"You're like me?"

 _A mutant? Yes._ I could hear his words as though he were whispering directly into my ear, and yet I felt them too. I felt his mind reaching out to my own, but more guarded this time, sometimes pulling back from contact sharply like a startled rabbit. _And Erik is too._

"He was the man in the water?" Another guess, but one I felt to be true. Erik, who had remained silent the whole time, stiffened.

"The point is, you're not alone. I can help you. Your mind is too open, and whilst your ability is remarkable, it's too raw. You need to learn to guard your thoughts." He laughed. "I could distinctly feel your presence from about a mile away, at least."

Oops. "I just don't know how," I mumbled. "Everyone is so _loud_."

He seemed to understand this. "What about if I were to this?"

Suddenly the explosion of chatter and feeling that had so overwhelmed me for the majority of my life dimmed and faded, as if some undiscovered volume button had just been pressed. I could still feel the presence of those around me, but it felt as if they were now tiptoeing by rather than crushing their presence into my brain with every pounding footstep. The feeling of lightness I experienced was unimaginable, and almost exhilarating. "How...?"

"I've suppressed the minds of those around you with my own defences." I could feel Charles' delight at my new-found freedom. "It's only temporary, mind you, as it unfortunately requires a close proximity and a great deal of concentration on my part."

"Teach me." The opportunity to become normal, to hide my mutation away and finally start living as opposed to surviving, was one that I couldn't afford to miss. I'd tried ignoring other peoples' thoughts before, even blocking them out with loudly-projected ones of my own, but that had been a failed experiment.

Charles made a musing sort of sound, a mix of "hmm" and "uhh". "It's not quite that simple. Different methods work for different people. I've learnt that projecting the image of a wall works well for me, but it does require an awful lot of patience."

"Charles, we really need to be going." I had completely forgotten about Erik, the only image of whom I had was a pale man with wide eyes tossed about in a tempest.

Charles sighed, and I knew he agreed, possibly even nodding if the slight rustle of his shirt was anything to go by. "Alright. But I'll visit again tomorrow."

" _That's_ a promise I believe." I grinned. An actual, genuine grin.

"Good to know I make such a lasting impression!" he chuckled, and gave me his hand.

On the walk home, I was able to navigate through the sensation of thoughts alone; thanks to Charles, each mind was a dimly glittering pinpoint of light rather than an exploding supernova. I knew it would not last, and anticipated the moment when Charles would shut the front door, and the whole world would pile upon me once more in endless roaring noise. Charles himself seemed to sense this, and I could feel soft waves of sympathy emanating from him as we talked, sometimes with ear-words, but more often with mind-words. I'd never had a mental conversation before, and ended up deafening him with over-enthusiastic projections of my replies.

What we discussed was hazy; I later recalled his questions on what it was like to be blind, and my answering demands for a description of where we were, in which he responded by sending me a mental picture that took my breath away with the vividness of its colour. Mostly I enjoyed the company, the sense of informality with which our minds circulated and intertwined, the silent understanding of what could be shared, and what was private, although he forgave me the odd mistake.

Eventually, we returned home, and my mother was waiting anxiously by the door. Questions hovered around her like bees about a particularly potent flower. "Where have you been?" she exclaimed. "You were due back half an hour ago!"

I was caught up in the pressure of her mind, but luckily Charles was able to answer smoothly. "I'm so sorry, we quite lost track of time," he said, and as he spoke, a warm blanket of calm suddenly fell over both me and my mother. "Rest assured, it won't happen again."

My mother, having lost track of her maternal anger, sought about for a simple means of gaining the upper hand. Failing that, she managed a faint: "Well, see that it doesn't."

I adopted a look of what I imagined to be humble sincerity, and was swept inside, Charles too despite his most charming protests. Whilst he was cornered in the living room with the promise of a drink for his efforts, I scrambled upstairs, and fell upon my bed in the first laughing fit I'd had in two years.


	3. Chapter 3

Thankfully, the next day Erik decided not to show. Or perhaps Charles had sensed my discomfort, and hadn't invited him. We sat in a café, by the window I guessed from the intense heat on my right side, and a slight breeze from the ceiling fans on my left.

"Does everyone call you Charles then?" I wrinkled my nose. "Never Charlie?"

"Goodness no, and don't start getting any ideas." There was a muffled slurp as Charles sipped his tea, and then he set his hands on the table enthusiastically. "Right. Today, a game."

"What, you mean _fun_?"

"You have to guess where the salt pot is." There was a soft thud as Charles picked it up, and set it down carefully, a chessplayer making the first move.

"Next to the pepper pot?"

"Hilarious."

I stretched my hand out, only to have it knocked away. "Hey! How else am I meant to find it?"

"Come on. Call it mind training."

"'Mind training'," I mocked. Nonetheless, I sighed, and reached for Charles' mind, only to blunder straight into those impenetrable steel walls once more. "That's hardly fair!" I protested.

"Concentrate."

I settled back in my chair, and tried again. But no matter how hard I prodded, poked, or just plain screamed, his walls remained utterly solid. I caught a whiff of his own smug surety of success, and set my jaw. Alright. If I couldn't win by his rules, I would make my own.

Reaching out, I sensed a couple only ten feet or so from our table. They were deep in conversation; the man seemed to be worried about something, and the woman more angry than anything else. An image of a heavily made-up woman slipped into my mind, and I sighed. An affair. Of course; some things never changed.

Cautiously, I skimmed the mind of the man, and then took a deep breath before crawling into his brain. Suddenly I was bombarded by his present fears and worries and plans, the two children waiting anxiously for him at home and a few others his wife had no idea about. My presence caused immediate alarm and panic; I wasn't fully in control, only a passenger. I couldn't see properly out of his eyes – everything appeared to be swirled with black, rippling like the world was merely a reflection in a lake. Somehow, my own blindness had been carried through with me, merging with his own sight. I tried to ignore it, and direct his head towards our table, but he refused, hands clenched in his lap as he fought for ownership of his own body. I was vaguely aware that his wife was shouting, something about listening when she was talking.

 _Come on, I'll leave you alone the moment you look at that table,_ I coaxed. His head jerkily turned an inch or so. _That's it_. Another inch. Almost there! His eyes were blurry with tears, but I could just about make out our table, me sitting there with vacant eyes and my teeth gritted in concentration, and a man who I realised with a jolt had to be Charles. I'd never seen him before, and took in the sweeping brown hair, the twinkling blue eyes that watched the man I was currently inhabiting with amusement. He knew!

And there was the salt pot. Relieved, I flew back into my own body, lungs heaving for breath. Wordlessly I sent him the memorised image, and in one smooth movement scooped up the salt pot and threw it into his lap.

I could hear the man sobbing. At least his wife had momentarily forgotten the affair. I grinned at Charles. "How did I do?"

He smiled warmly, and sent a wave of calm to the man, who instantly stopped crying. "Not bad, but you were a little sloppy. You can't let your subject know that you were in their head. Subtlety is the key." A chiming thud as the salt pot was set down once more. "Again."

I grimaced. "You promised fun!"

By the end of the session, I had taken control of every mind in the café one by one, with varying degrees of success. Even Charles, to his complete astonishment, although only for a second or two before he pushed me out with utmost ease. Show-off.

"I still can't get a grasp of this defences thing," I admitted on the walk home. Although through the mouth of a passer-by just for the hell of it.

Charles chuckled. "I sense that once you understand the technique, you won't have any sort of difficulty at all." He instantly stopped, and then turned to face me. "Okay. Repel me."

"Huh?"

"I will attack your mind. I want you to defend yourself. Any way that feels natural."

I was in the middle of justifying why I couldn't do it, and therefore why he was a shoddy teacher that he struck. It felt like a physical blow, and I almost fell to my knees from the sheer weight of it. _Focus!_ His voice reverberated through me. I could feel him sitting there behind my eyes, in my brain, _my_ brain, feet up, waiting for me to push him out and back into his own body. I struggled to think; his very presence sent jagged lines of pain through my skull. It was _wrong_. He shouldn't be there. I tried to picture a wall, but he cast it aside lazily with another shock of pain that brought tears to my eyes.

"I can't," I gasped. "I can't do it."

 _Push._

I imagined pushing him away with my arms, kicking him back, and somehow my mind felt a little lighter. I pushed harder, but it wasn't a physical push, more an imagined physical push that somehow loosened his mental grip over me. And now he was unstable, I had a foothold. I struggled for space, braced myself against the inside of my own skull and formed the prow of my own mind into an arrowhead, a dagger, a sharp point that drove him _out_.

He fell into his own body laughing. "That was incredible!"

I blushed. Or at least it felt like blushing. Maybe I was scowling instead. "Really?"

"That's the sort of technique you need to apply daily, only a little less... intensive. You push back the reach of others, and you expand your own mind."

I knew he'd taken it easy on me, but I had done something, achieved something. My body was ablaze with the pride of success.

Suddenly, Charles gasped, a loud intake of breath that made me jump. "What?"

"Would you look at the time? Well, not you personally." He nearly frogmarched me through the crowd. "If we're not back soon, your mother will force me to have a drink with her again. And I'm not at all fond of gin, at least not the way she serves it."

Luckily, mother wasn't waiting for us by the door this time. Unluckily for Charles, she insisted on plying him with multiple glasses of something that smelt strongly of nail varnish.

 _Enjoying your drink, Charlie?_ I mocked.

 _So much for gratitude,_ was the wry answer.

Not that I was exempt from embarrassment, as mother thought it appropriate to trot out a long series of childhood stories, in which Charles took a great deal of interest.

 _Please stop encouraging her,_ I begged.

 _Nonsense. I'm having an utterly charming time, Hen Hen,_ he remarked with a snide edge.

 _Call me that again, and I will kill you._ I had a hard time not laughing at the constant stream of quips running through my brain. Somehow, I'd never considered that having a mutation could actually be amusing.

There was a knock at the door, and I excused myself to go and open it. The moment I did, my father, towing a slight figure behind him, rushed past, almost knocking me to the floor.

"Shut the door!" he yelled, and there was something in his voice, an edge of unfamiliar panic, that meant I didn't have to think twice.

He raced through into the living room, and I clumsily jogged after him, catching my shoulder on the wall in my haste. "What's going on? Dad?" I could feel the smaller figure pressing against me, a tiny hand fumbling for my own. Cassie. My sister.

"What's Cass doing home from school?" mother asked, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice quickly.

"Anti-mutant rally," he remarked shortly. A metallic rustle told me he was pulling the curtains. "Who's this?"

"Charles Xavier," said Charles. There was a tightness in his voice that made me shiver. If he was worried, then I was terrified.

"He's Hen's guide, has been for a few days," my mother chipped in anxiously. "He's alright."

"Does he know?"

"Probably. Everyone does." I could feel my mother's terror from here, terror for me. "What do we do?"

"Lie low. It should pass after a day or two. Hopefully no one will think to look here."My father's voice was weary; there had been more demonstrations than we'd cared to remember. Windows smashed, banners hung from nearly every wall. Last year there had been a few bodies. Lynchings. It was only getting worse, and my blindness only made me an easier target.

"Henry, would you mind if we had a word?" Charles basically propelled me from the room.

"Henry? I thought I told you I hated that name!" Despite my attempts to lighten the situation, Charles remained deadly serious. Under his grave exterior, I thought I detected a whisper of fear, just for a single second.

"You're not safe here."

" _We're_ not safe here," I corrected.

"But you in particular. Your abilities are still too unstable. I may have been able to give you a few days of advice, but that's not enough." He sighed. "I can get you out of here. Get you somewhere safe. Erik and I, we're gathering a group of people."

"Mutants?" My heart thundered out of control, so much so that I was rendered breathless. "A whole group of mutants?"

"It's not without risk."

I remembered the image of Erik floundering, and my own, or rather Charles' struggle beneath the pitch-black waves. The sensation of drowning. My stomach dropped. "What sort of risk?"

"We've been... recruited by the government to combat a mutant threat, a threat even to us, not just humans." He fidgeted, and he seemed... guilty? "I was sent here to find you, and bring you back. Only if you agreed."

"You certainly took your time about asking."

"I had to make sure you were capable. Especially with your..."

"My blindness." There was a sourness in the back of my throat. I wasn't sure why. His concern for my safety was somewhat touching, and admittedly if I were in his shoes, I'd want to pick someone who could actually _see_ what they were up against. But then again, I was a little hurt that he thought I couldn't handle myself.

"But you're sure now?"

The familiar grin was back; I wished I could see it. "Positive."

"And what about my family?" I swallowed, a feeling of nausea sweeping over me. "Will they be safe if I go?"

"I hate to say it, but you pose a greater threat to them if they stay." His voice was gentle, sympathetic. "With a mutant under their roof, they become targets."

"I guess... I should go then." I could see my mother's face, those worn eyes, and imagined them sinking deeper and deeper to fill with tears like holes dug in wet sand at the beach. Sadness sweeping in to replace those gaping holes. But I couldn't do this to any of them any more. If my absence guaranteed their safety, then surely that was the right choice to make, instantly and without hesitation. I pressed my lips into a grim smile. "I'm not sure I'll prove to be especially helpful for your government _thing_ , but I can certainly try."

He pressed my hand, gratitude seeping through his skin to mine. "You'll need a few changes of clothes. But nothing conspicuous. I'll let your family know."

Upstairs, alone, I shoved bundles of clothes into an old rucksack, whatever toiletries I could feel as my own in my haste to be ready, and a handful of loose change from the table beside my bed. As an afterthought, I stuck in a few Braille books, just for emergencies. You could never be too careful. And... that was it. My whole life tied up on my shoulders. My own bedroom and I still had no idea how it looked, only how it felt, where the sharp corners and jutting surprises of various items were. A maze that I could navigate perfectly by my fingertips. Perhaps if I could have seen it, it wouldn't have seemed the same. It's odd how the way you approached something could completely change your viewpoint. I'd never worn that red shirt again after seeing it for the first time; it was far too brash and _blinding_ , despite how soft and comforting it had felt on the skin.

Outside the cool barrier of the window, hatred reigned. I could feel it brewing, hesitantly now, but it wouldn't be long before it erupted in full force. Hot red, pulsing slowly like the heart of a sleeping child. Almost innocent in its silent, newborn silence, this collective growing of fear and the primitive rejection of what so many could not possibly understand. There was the odd spike that made me wince, the kicks of a yet unborn baby, from several of the minds I touched who were more sensitive than most, who could feel my feather-like presence and darted from the contact guiltily like startled fish.

"Henry!"

 _Call me that one more time..._ I warned. Descending the stairs, I expected to be bombarded with worry, panic, suspicion. There was only sadness tinged with acceptance.

 _They know_ , Charles thought. _About me, about where we're going. In part, at least. They know you'll be safe._

I was glad, of course. The last thing I wanted to feel was my family crumbling apart around me. But there was something too easy about the way they let me slip away. In the embrace of my mother and father, and their muttered promises and wishes of luck, there was something almost like... relief. Gratitude that I was going, that they could finally become a normal family. They loved me, I could feel that so strongly, but my mutant status had tainted that love into a guilty resentment. I was a little relieved when they finally released me with a kiss on each cheek. At least I was doing them a favour, in a perverse manner of speaking.

Cassie was the last to take my hand. "I'll miss you," she whispered, both out loud and in her mind. I could feel that she meant it. Of all of us, she had understood my abilities, and my blindness, the least. She'd treated it like a game; she wanted me to guess what number she was thinking of, or where she was hiding; she came to me when she couldn't remember where she'd last left her shoes in the hope that I could somehow extract the information from her brain; she followed me around with one hand in mine, another over tightly shut eyes, although occasionally peeping through her fingers, in the hopes that she too could learn how it was to be blind.

And I loved her for it.

"Yeah, me too." I let my fingers run over the curves of her face one more time, etching her shape into my mind: the small curving of her nose, the distance between her eyes, the soft down of hairs around her temples. There was a furtive brush of my mind against hers, the barest whispering of love that I hoped might console her somewhat.

And then it was time to go.

I fumbled for Charles' shoulder, and the other hand reached for my cane by the door. But Charles hesitated, his mind communicating something like disapproval. _Conspicuous_. I swallowed, but wasn't going to back down so easily. Instead, I folded the cane down, and squeezed it into my rucksack. I wouldn't leave it behind, but I knew nor could I use it when there was such high suspicion roaming the streets and coiling around those who stood out, noose tight.

 _I guess I'll be sharing your eyes then._

He smiled internally; well, it wasn't so much a smile, more of a glow, a momentary brightening of his soul. _So long as you're a quiet passenger_ , he thought.

 _When am I not?_

A memory swam before my eyes, misted with smug recollection, before withdrawing back inside Charles' mind. The memory of the man crying at the café, and multiple others, of waiters dropping drinks from the shock of my entrance, an old woman fainting...

 _Oh, shut up_ , I snapped.

A final farewell hug. "Take care of her, please," my mother said. There was a fresh, unheard quality in her voice, that of raw stone or a primal knife blade. Her hand was clamped claw-like around my wrist, and for a moment, I thought she would never let go.

"I promise." Charles' soothing voice gently removed her hand as if it had limbs of its own, and then he took my own, his other a soft pressure in the crook of my elbow, as if through contact he could impart his own solid confidence into me. He could sense my fear; even I felt how my mind shook and guttered like a candle flame in a fatal breeze. "She'll be perfectly safe."

Together, we turned for the door, and for me it felt like I would never see this house, my home, ever again. In a way, I was right.


	4. Chapter 4

"What now?" I could barely hear myself over the pounding of my heart and the thousands of others all about me. Without Charles' arm to lean upon, I had no doubt that I would have had trouble walking with the intensity of feeling about me. Even with Charles' mind shielding my own, today was different. Every mind was a pale reddish hue, and emitted nervous energy, fear, the sort of uncertain anger that comes from not quite understanding what your hate is aimed at. The scattered nebulas of rioters were the worst; suddenly, I would be struck both physically and mentally with such _noise_ : shouting, chanting, the rainfall of feet on tarmac. Hands would grab my clothes, my hair, tugging me to join them, or checking amidst violent accusations that I wasn't one of _them_. Charles managed to steer us both through, mind stiff and bristling with his own private anger.

"I contacted Erik yesterday. There should be a car a few minutes away." Before I could respond, he cut in. "We both thought it would be safer for your family if he didn't pick us up in front of the house."

I was still sometimes thrown off-kilter a little by his ability to see what I was thinking, sometimes even before I thought it myself. He chuckled, and I knew he'd heard that observation too.

"Believe me, this is fairly new for myself too. Erik is rather opposed to my ability, so I have to keep it to myself." His voice took a serious tone. "I don't like to intervene, not if I don't have to. People generally don't take it too well if you go prying around their minds like it's some sort of museum."

"What can Erik do? You said he was one of us."

"He can manipulate metal. It's rather an impressive skill." Was that a note of jealousy? I could have laughed. It wasn't often that mutants' abilities were envied, at least not openly. Charles cut through this thought by stopping abruptly, causing my to trip over my own feet.

 _Sorry_ , he thought. I had shared his own eyesight upon leaving the house for a few technicolour seconds before the waves of hatred had hit me. It was all I could do to remain confidently in my own mind, let alone someone else's in the constant din. _We're here._

There was an engine rumbling a few feet away, and as we stood there was a click and slam as a door was opened then closed. Footsteps approached. I recognised Erik's mind almost immediately: it had a pungent, metallic smell that followed him like a ghostly trail.

"Charles!" Erik sounded almost relieved.

"Erik. You remember Henry?"

"Yes. Hello." A gruff greeting was thrown my way. Then his voice was lowered. "Are you sure you wanted her on the team?"

"Perfectly."

"But she's-"

"Blind, not deaf," I interrupted smoothly.

I could feel Charles grin. "I think she'll be a valuable asset. Besides, she can't stay here."

"Mutant scum!" The cry came from behind me, and I swung round, startled. Before I knew what was happening, someone had torn me from Charles' arm, and I was swung into unknown territory, a never-ending blackness with no sides, no anchors apart from the hand that had me by the scruff of my shirt.

"I could smell it on you, witch!" the voice hissed, only tightening its grasp as I writhed and kicked, simultaneously looking for a foothold whilst also trying to land a punch. I could feel fabric across my face, and guessing it was his sleeve, I sank my teeth in as far as they would go. He screamed, and let me go.

I scrabbled across the pavement, hands reading the texture of the ground, every slope and crack and sharp granule of stone. But I was lost; all my sense of direction had been unravelled the moment I'd been pulled away, swung round and round. I could be mere feet away from Charles, or stumbling back into the arms of my captor. I couldn't pick out either of their minds, not in the disorientating crush of loose thought and emotion; the adrenalin rushing through my blood made me feel sick.

Suddenly, there was another shout, perhaps from the same man, and then a crunch. There was a high animalistic screech, and then a wave of sleepiness so strong that I felt my own eyelids respond to the pull. The hand that fell on my shoulder broke the spell, and without thinking I crawled back, and my hands found the roughness of brick behind me. A wall!

"It's alright, it's Charles."

I sighed and crumpled back against the wall. "Thank God it's you! What the hell happened?"

He gave me a hand up. "One of the rioters had broken away. I think he smelt an easy target."

"We weren't so easy as he thought." Erik felt grimly satisfied. His mind felt somewhat bloody, and suddenly I didn't want to know what he'd done.

Charles quickly sent me a flash of images: a man diving for Erik, a man who suddenly screamed as the metal watch around his wrist tightened of its own accord, cutting into the flesh, the bone. Then that wave of pure exhaustion that had seemed so tempting, which left the man snoring against a wall.

 _His wrist is most likely broken, but he'll be alright_. Charles rankled of disapproval.

"Are we going, or not?" Erik climbed back into the car, and there was a growl as the engine was kicked back into life. Hesitantly, I ran a hand over the side of the vehicle until I found the handle, and then I climbed inside, sliding a little on the slick leather interior. The car felt expensive. Probably black, inside and out – wasn't that the way with all government vehicles? Even the seatbelts fell into place with a secretive sort of click, as if being a seatbelt was only a cover for a far more dramatic role. Needless to say I felt pretty out of place. For starters, government agents don't wear blue (or whatever colour I had on that was definitely _not_ the required black).

I would have asked where we were going, but the disgust radiating constantly from Erik made me keep my mouth, and mind, shut. He didn't want me here, that much was obvious, so perhaps trying to blend in with the leatherwork wasn't such a bad idea.

Charles gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You might want to get some sleep. It's a long drive."

I settled back, and shut my eyes, but my ears remained pricked for whatever conversation might start the moment they thought I wasn't listening.

 _Nice try._

 _Damn_. Being in the same car as a telepath could be so inconvenient sometimes.

I was woken by a gentle hand on the shoulder, whose owner I naturally assumed to be Charles. "Are we there yet?" I asked, mimicking Cassie's traditional bored whine when stuck on a particularly long car journey.

"Yes." I jumped back, startled by the sudden roughness of Erik's voice. "What, you were expecting Charles?" He seemed amused.

"Um... a bit, yeah." I was still blurry with sleep; his mind was a fuzzy, indistinguishable mass as I rubbed the tiredness from my eyes, and carefully climbed from the car.

"Charles had to go meet our human _friends_." There was a nasty edge to the word 'humans' that didn't sit too well with me. I shouldered my bag, and gingerly reached for Erik's arm.

He shrugged me off. "What are you doing?"

I was hurt. Really? He had paid so little attention to me? Despite myself, I began to bristle, rising to his challenge. "Unless you think my mutation enables me to teleport, it would be nice if you'd show me where I needed to be. You know, since I can't show myself?" I gestured to my eyes, and smiled sarcastically, reaching once more, however reluctantly, for his arm.

Faintly, I felt surprise, and then... shame? "Sorry... I'd quite forgotten." It was a gruff, monotone apology, but an apology nonetheless, and I instantly felt a little bad for cutting into the guy.

I patted the arm I was clinging to. "No big deal. So, where are we going again?"

He started walking, but slowly so I was able to keep up. "We've got a facility here. We're collecting, well, no, recruiting is a more accurate word, _recruiting_ mutants."

"How many?"

"Wait and see." There was a whiff of amusement, as if he'd just made a private joke.

The rest of the walk was conducted in silence. Not only did I miss the warm presence of Charles' mind, but the general noise the presence of people made in general. Other than Erik, and the odd wavering thought that spoke of maybe one or two people wandering past, the air was silent. Still, like the surface of a lake. I found myself missing the turbulent stream of conscience that came with a busy street. What had once saddled me with a permanent headache now seemed inviting compared with the chill of silence permeating wherever it was we were.

I would have guessed we were in a corridor of sorts. Our footsteps had a metallic echo, and if I stretched my free arm out, I could just about feel a wall sliding smoothly underneath my fingertips, and often interspersed with empty spaces where new corridors turned off, or faintly perceptible ridges where doors broke the endless stretch. We twisted and turned so often that I knew even with my cane I'd be lost within the first few turns. Erik never broke pace. There was a straightness to him that was almost military; the arm that I held was muscular, and no doubt strong. Who was he? Every time I thought about him, I saw that face swallowed by water, pale, hunted, desperate. And yet I felt like that was an image Charles hadn't meant for me to see.

Eventually, we came to a stop. Two minds pulsed yellow with alarm. There were a multitude of metallic clicks, frighteningly familiar from cheap police films they showed regularly at the pictures. Not that I could watch, but I'd grown particularly sensitive to every rustle on screen, and knew that the two men in front of us were certainly armed.

"Can we see some identification, sir?"

Erik sighed. "Soldiers." There was a whisper of fabric, and then the crackle of paper. "Erik Lensherr."

"Who's your friend?"

"A new mutant for the division. There will be plenty of time to log her in the database later." Erik sounded exhausted.

"I can prove it," I piped up in what I hoped was a helpful sort of voice, or at least gave the impression that I couldn't be dangerous even if I tried. "Think of any number, I won't even give you any boundaries!"

"That won't be necessary ma'am," one soldier said. Nonetheless, the number _46372.474_ was highlighted smugly in green at the back of his mind.

I adopted a mystic pose, fingers on my temples, eyes rolled back into my skull. "Is it... Ooooh... Is it... 46372.474?" I swooned dramatically.

"Um... yes." The guard sounded embarrassed. "How...?"

Erik chuckled.

"Just through here, ma'am," the other soldier cut in briskly. The door sprang open, and Erik propelled me through.

"You're not coming?" For a moment, I panicked.

"You'll do fine on your own." The door shut, and I was left stranded, alone.


	5. Chapter 5

My first impression was of being on a desert island amidst a dark, mist-swarmed sea, punctuated only by six minds glowing with the same metallic intensity of Charles'. But he wasn't there, I could tell immediately. I stumbled forwards, and then thought better of it. Falling over wouldn't make the best impression. "Hello?"

All six minds flared up, as if they hadn't realised I was there to start with. There was the sound of thudding feet, and suddenly I was surrounded by warm bodies, my hands grabbed and shaken enthusiastically by others, shoulders patted. I felt _welcome_ and _happiness_ , two emotions so strong that I was made a little dizzy, as if someone had clamped a cloth over my face; I needed air. These people, whoever they were, were pleased to see me. It was overwhelming, and I blindly tried to push my way clear so I had space to think.

"Alright, give her some space!" Someone, a female, pushed the hands back. Her voice radiated welcome. "Hey, I'm Raven!"

"Um, Henrietta."

Her mind actively filed the information away. It was odd, a little like Erik's. At my slightest touch, it pulled itself away, almost like she could sense me. And it was so _busy_. Even from a distance I could feel it whirring and flickering, shaking so fast that the edges were blurred into a bronzed halo. Occasionally parts of it would flutter and change, so the overall effect was that of a shaky image projected by a flickbook. "When did you arrive?"

I had no idea, so I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe quarter of an hour ago? What time is it?"

"What time is it?" someone echoed disbelievingly, a boy. His brain was by far the loudest and most oblivious to my contact. Although when I prodded, it generated a high-pitched squealing that rather hurt, so I quickly stopped.

It was an odd question, but Raven helpfully answered. "It's about eight o'clock."

I raised my eyebrows.

"In the evening?" she tried.

I nodded. "Thanks."

"Well, it is dark outside."

Oh. They didn't know. Well, that made this marginally trickier.

Something in my expression must have given away my confusion, as Raven quickly tried to organise the situation. "How about we do this sitting down? What do you want to drink?"

"Um... I don't mind. Thanks." I managed a friendly smile, and did my best to follow the sounds of the others as they congregated on various chairs and sofas spread around the room in what must have been a loose circle. My hand accidentally caught the back of a sofa, and thankfully I manoeuvred myself around it to sit down. Someone passed me a can of something which turned out to be coke. I could feel someone sitting quietly next to me, and aimed a polite smile their way.

"You can't see, can you?" they said in a whisper. Male.

I stiffened. "How did you know?"

"Because you just smiled over my shoulder."

I shrugged. "Fair enough. I guess I'll have to tell everyone else at some point anyway."

A hand grasped mine. "Hank McCoy."

"Henrietta."

A slight chuckle. "You already said."

I grinned. "So I did. Well, there's nothing wrong with repetition."

Raven's voice cut across the general chatter. "Alright, so this is Hank-"

"You already said," I muttered in a fair imitation of Hank, earning another chuckle.

"-and then there's Alex, Sean, Angel, and Armando."

"I prefer Darwin," a voice cut in.

"Alright: Armando, but preferably Darwin!"

"Right." I sighed, and decided that it was probably best to just come out with it and save problems later. "As nice as that intro was, I have no idea who's who." I shrugged, a lump suddenly in my throat. "I'm blind."

The room went silent. There was a pregnant sort of pause, as if everyone were waiting for a punchline, or a "Got you!" I sat back, and sipped my coke.

Raven was the first to chip in. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea-" she began, but I waved her off. The last thing I needed to do was turn this into a pity party.

"It's fine, honestly, it just makes things like introductions a little trickier. Although..." I grinned wickedly, and gave Hank what I hoped was my best sidelong glance. "Could I perhaps borrow your eyes?"

"Huh?"

"I'll explain later. It would just be a little easier."

"Um... Alright then." There was an undeniable tone of curiosity in Hank's voice.

In the blink of an eye, I was in his world, a little hazy, but good enough. I could feel his surprise and shock, and instantly tried to remain as still as possible, minimalising my impact on his own actions. Thankfully the practice with Charles had paid off.

I was in a huge room with white walls and a smooth wooden floor. The entire wall on my immediate right was a huge flawless window looking out over a grassy courtyard surrounding a statue of a man in a suitably grand pose, floodlit by the light pouring from the room which I was in. Sofas and chairs were in a rough rectangle around a table; further into the room there was a modern kitchen, a table with nasty plastic chairs, and, oddly, a pinball machine. There was what looked like a TV set in the corner. Panelled lights were set into the ceiling, washing everything in a brilliant clinical glow. Outside in the night, squat square buildings glared down upon us. Nothing could have screamed 'government facility' more.

"What's going on?" A girl across from me looked pretty freaked out, considering that my face was set in intense concentration, my eyes fixed on Hank.

"Sorry, I just wanted to see everything." It was bizarre feeling my mouth move, and yet seeing the world from another person's eyes. "I've temporarily borrowed Hank's eyes."

"This is really weird," Hank said. He moved his head, and my vision moved with it. The lack of control was unnerving, and it would have been so easy to get Hank's head to stay still, to turn this way so I could see what was behind...

"So, who's who again?"

One by one, although somewhat uncertainly, everyone reintroduced themselves. Alex was slouched in a corner chair, blue eyes darting from face to face warily, occasionally running a hand through his blonde hair in something approaching a nervous tick. Sean was the one with the piercingly loud mind, and he somehow looked it, with red curling hair, freckles, and a confident smirk. Angel and Armando, or rather Darwin, shared a sofa. Angel was pretty and slim with long dark hair and big brown eyes, whereas Darwin was rather more lanky, with a head that seemed a little too big for the rest of his body. I guessed him to be the oldest of the group, which was made up primarily of teenagers; his face was permanently lit up with a huge smile, and he sat back in his chair, comfortable, confident, in a room full of otherwise on-edge people. Even when mutants were together, they still couldn't fully relax.

Raven was sat beside me – or rather Hank – and had long, curling blond hair, and a dazzling smile. I could have blushed when I realised Hank had a huge crush on her. It was the only thing I could feel when he looked at her, and vainly I tried to block out Hank's thoughts and... desires. But what good was it when I was actually _inside_ of his head? There was nowhere for me to go! But the longer I spent in Hank's mind, the easier it got. I was able to move and talk whilst using his eyes to direct my own body. The change from the blaring way in which I'd barged behind the eyes of others a few days ago was frankly astounding.

Soon enough, the conversation took a rather more business-like turn.

"We should think of code names," exclaimed Raven, eyes bright with excitement. "We're government agents now, we should have secret code names." She looked expectantly around the room, sure that her idea was a good one, before sitting back in her chair with the satisfied air of one who already knows the answer to their own question. "I want to be called Mystique."

"Damn, I wanted to be called Mystique!" Shaun drawled.

"Well, tough. I called it." And then suddenly, Raven's skin seemed to _ripple_ and divide into thousands of tiny blue scales that flickered upwards from her toes to her head, like leaves skittering across the road on a windy day, and in the blink of an eye, she was no longer Raven. She was Sean. She smirked and rolled her eyes, Sean's eyes, at Sean, who was frozen with shock. "And I'm _way_ more mysterious than you."

The whole room burst into gobsmacked applause, with even Sean looking impressed. "Darwin, what about you?"

Darwin grinned. "Well, Darwin's already a nickname, and, you know, it sort of fits. Adapt to survive and all." He practically jumped out of his seat, eager to show us what he could do. Proud of his mutation. "Check this out."

There was a fishtank I hadn't even noticed in the corner, and without a moment's hesitation, Darwin shoved his head under. We waited with baited breath, and then gasped as we watched the skin around Darwin's neck split and fused into a set of gills, enabling Darwin to breathe underwater. We clapped and cheered, and although Hank had turned his head to look at Raven again, just from the corner of his eye, I could see Darwin's face light up, and a smile split across his face as he soaked up the applause.

Raven laughed. "That was incredible!"

Darwin mopped his face with a towel, and fell back into his seat. "Thank you."

Raven's attention snapped to Sean. "What about you?"

"I'm going to be..." There was a moment as Sean stared at the floor in thought. Then suddenly, his head shot up as a thought struck him. I knew what he was going to say even before he said it. "Banshee."

Hank piped up. "Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?"

Sean smirked. "You might want to cover your ears." I frowned as he crouched in front of the table, but raised my hands to my ears anyway. He inhaled deeply, looked from side to side to make sure all eyes were on him, and then... screamed.

The sound was like a bullet. It tore through the air and made my teeth vibrate in their sockets. There was a crashing of glass, and we stared, transfixed, as slowly the great window cracked down the middle and fell, smashing into tiny splintered rainbows that scattered themselves across the courtyard and glinted in the light. A cool night breeze whipped at my hair.

There was a moment of silence, even Sean looking shocked at what he'd done. And then sound returned in a hullabaloo of whooping and laughing, whilst Sean, grinning sheepishly, bowed this way and that before slouching back into his chair, and pointing a lazy finger in Angel's direction. "Your turn."

She cleared her throat, and stood up, shrugging off her leather jacket to reveal a backless dress, and a huge tattoo that stretched from her back across her arms. "My stage name is Angel." Sean wolf-whistled, but his jaw dropped open just like everyone else's as Angel's skin rippled and split, the tattoo tearing itself from her arms and flickering with fresh life. In a matter of seconds, they had formed a pair of glittering, translucent wings veined with shimmering colours that changed with every movement, like those from a dragonfly. Angel flapped them a few times experimentally, so fast that they blurred into a jewelled haze behind her. She shrugged and smiled, well, angelically. "It kind of fits."

"You can _fly_?" Raven exclaimed.

"Uh-huh. And..." She casually turned to the window, smiled sweetly, and then spat a gob of liquid fire, which then landed on the statue. The stone fizzed and hissed, partially melting so that the man now had a deeply-furrowed frown on his face. There was a burst of laughter as Angel sat down.

"What's your name?" Raven turned to Hank. I could feel him freezing up at the sudden attention.

Alex sniggered, and sipped his coke. "How about Big Foot?"

Raven scowled. You know what they say about guys with big feet. And..." She raised her eyebrows, about to deliver the killer blow. "Yours are kind of small."

Alex sank into his seat scowling at the eruption of laughter and jeering.

Darwin sought to re-establish the peace, although he too was laughing. "Okay, now. Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?"

Alex fidgeted nervously. All confidence had gone. "It's not..." He stared at his feet. "I just can't do it. I can't do it in here."

Darwin's voice softened. "Can you do it out there?"

Alex said nothing. His posture screamed his discomfort at being amongst so many people; I could feel his desire for isolation, and was about to speak out, and hopefully pull attention away and back to the new freak of the day. Unfortunately, I was too late. Protests broke out across the room.

"Why don't you just do it out there?"

"Come on!"

"Alex! Alex! Alex!" The chant spread across the room until everyone was screaming his name. Sean thumped the arm of his chair as he enthusiastically bellowed with the rest of us.

Alex sighed, and with the utmost reluctance, eased himself out of his chair amidst an eruption of applause.

"That's the spirit!"

He ignored the outcry, his face blank, as he climbed out of the window. "Get down when I tell you." Something in his voice made me shiver, but I got up with the others, and rather unsteadily made my way to the window, standing beside Hank as I watched through his eyes eagerly to see what was going to happen.

"'Get down when I tell you,'" Angel mocked.

"Get back," Alex ordered. We ducked behind the wall, and then a few seconds later poked our heads back out again, eager for the spectacle.

He turned, saw us again. "Get back!" When he realised no one was listening, he growled. "Whatever."

The air around him fizzled and smoked, darkened and solidified, began to move. He was surrounded by red rings of light, hurtling past with such noise and wind that I gripped Hank's shoulder for support. I smelt burning, heard the crackle of pure energy as the rings got tighter and tighter, faster and faster. Finally, they were released, and flew out in all directions, several hissing into the sky like fireworks, whilst one made direct contact with the statue, slicing it cleanly in half with an explosion of spitting sparks and brimstone-scented steam.

Alex turned and shrugged, a little embarrassed. There was a silence, and then we all broke into applause once more, amazed by the display, me more than anyone else. How could so many fantastic people exist unknown? How had I borne so many years of isolation when there were people like me out there, waiting for recognition?

We all settled back into our seats, and eyes turned to me, Hank's included. For a moment I was gazing at myself, and was shocked by my own appearance. Not so much in that I didn't like what I saw, but in that I'd never properly seen myself before. Once, by accident, many years ago. And then a few more times recently with Charles, but not properly. Not this close. So close that I could tell my eyes weren't green after all but grey, with an odd, yellowish ring around the pupil. So close that I could see the few freckles, the worry lines that had been steadily carved into my forehead, the natural downturn of my mouth.

"Oh, right, my turn." I grimaced, and pulled myself back into my own mind, back into the darkness. I couldn't face my own face any longer. I realised I was trembling, and readjusted myself in my seat, coughed, smiled. Got used to my own skin again.

"What's your name going to be?" Raven demanded excitedly.

I grinned. "No idea. I was never much good at nicknames." I put on a mock-mysterious voice, and sat back in my chair. "I am Madam Mystery and I command you all to pick a number between one and ten."

"A magic trick? Really?" Sean scoffed. "Okay, I've got one."

" _Everyone_ needs one," I said. I dramatically touched my fingers to my temples and winced as though in deep concentration, although I knew everyone's number from a quick sweep around the room. Raven was a little trickier, but I managed to extract it within a few seconds. "Hank! Five."

"Alright, you got me," Hank said.

"Raven! Three."

Raven laughed uncertainly.

"Ten for Alex."

I felt a silent nod of acknowledgement from his direction.

"How odd, both Angel and Darwin went for seven." I delivered a withering glare in the direction of Sean. "And Sean, when I say between one and ten, I don't really mean fractions. So whilst I know you chose three and four tenths, it doesn't _really_ count."

I could feel his amazement from here. "What?"

"Alright, alright," I laughed. And then I projected my voice into the heads of everyone there. _The truth is, I'm a telepath._

There were gasps of amazement, and a ripple of voices as everyone asked one another, "Did you hear that?"

"Alright." Sean decided to challenge me. "Say: 'Sean is the best'."

I frowned. _Why on earth would I do that?_

Sean shivered at the mental contact.

I sighed, and in the deepest, most booming voice I could muster: _SEAN IS THE BEST. Happy?_

Everyone laughed, and Hank slapped me on the shoulder. "Amazing!"

I smiled modestly, but was delighted that something that would have isolated me was valued here. Now. By my own kind. I tried to wrap my mind around that – I was essentially part of a new _species_.

"How do you do that?" It seemed to be a general question, echoed in minds and mouths alike.

I merely shrugged. "No idea. I can just hear thoughts like they're being spoken, and feel projected emotions like they're my own. It's a little disconcerting." I leaned forwards as I became more enthused, for once able to discuss truly what I felt. I could feel the quivering of those minds around me as they caught traces of my rippling enthusiasm. "I can see minds, a bit like a sixth sense. They're like little glowing spots on the backs of my eyelids, a little like an after-image if you stare at the sun for too long."

 _Charles_ , Raven whispered.

"What about him?" Her mind reeled, and I covered my mouth with a hand. Too late. Already I'd made a blunder. "Sorry. Didn't mean to do that-"

"It's fine. But... you're like him?"

I nodded. "Although he's far better." I vaguely recalled a brief conversation we'd had in which he'd been able to manipulate my sight, painting figures before me too bright to be fake, before vanishing into black mist. I hadn't managed it; the most I could to was to make his vision go hazy, as if ink had been spilled across his eyes.

I felt a strange sensation of violation from her; her thoughts were tinted with an odd shade of blue and prickled with worry, as if trying to hide something. Or at least not something, but _everything_.

"I'm sorry. I can't... I can't turn this off." My tone was guilty as I realised she was afraid of what _I_ could see. A familiar alienation washed over me. "It's just there, in front of me. Physically." I sighed. "It's hard to explain."

"It's alright." _I know what it's like to hide._

Sean broke the sudden tension. "What am I thinking?"

I winced at the sudden crashing noise of a string of gobbledegook, mixed in with some rather colourful vulgarities. "Nothing I could pronounce, or would want to. Although if you could think a little quieter that would be delightful."

 _SURE!_

I grimaced in pain. _That's not quiet!_

 _Sorry. This better?_ A little too much reverb for my taste, but less like the screaming feedback of earlier.

 _Better._


	6. Chapter 6

Somehow, things ended up being a little noisier than predicted.

Maybe it was the high spirits, or someone had managed to rustle up a few bottles of something alcoholic, but music quickly began to blare through the room, partially deafening my sensitive ears, and there were screams of delight in response to _something_. I managed to tap back into Hank's eyes, but for some reason everything was blurry and upside down, swaying wildly from one side to the other, and I quickly retreated back into soothing blackness, feeling a little seasick. I reached out for another mind close by, which turned out to be Alex. I could see from the corner of his eye Hank hanging from the ceiling, and Raven dancing on the couch, producing squeals of happiness as she dodged Angel who swooped across the room in some crazed dance of her own.

The loud crunch of wood on stone made me flinch as from Alex's own eyes I watched him swing a bat into Darwin's back. And yet it bounced back, the wood clearly dented and splintered in places.

"Come on, you can go harder than that!" Darwin shouted, his face split by the biggest smile I'd ever seen. And his back... It was carved from stone, although carved would be the wrong word as it was as jagged and harsh as a sea-worn cliff. He was _hewn_ from the stuff; Alex's joy swelled through me as he launched another swing at Darwin. Splinters of wood went flying.

With difficulty, I got up and made my way over to Sean who was watching open-mouthed. Whilst I could see, the perspective was off; I had to translate left and right from what I was seeing to what my body was actually doing. I longed for my cane, but Erik had taken my bag for me.

 _Pretty cool, huh?_

He jumped, his mind thrumming from the contact like a plucked string. "Jeez, you've got to stop doing that!"

I smirked. "Why? It's fun!" For a moment, I transferred myself into Sean's mind, and watched for a second as Alex, beaming, went in for what would have been a lethal series of blows. Darwin merely laughed. "Harder!"

Sean shook his head like he was trying to dispel a swarm of flies; I obliged, and sank back into myself. There was part of him that admired me definitely, but also a part that was slightly awestruck by what I could do. I didn't want to push it, and turn that awe into fear.

Suddenly, a familiar starburst of gold flared into life behind my eyes, brightening and warming as it moved ever closer. Charles. With some gentle nudging, I could distantly hear words tumbling through his brain in Erik's familiar tone of disapproval: "I'm telling you, these kids are not ready for Shaw."

I pulled back, and turned to Sean. "Bit of a problem. Charles and Erik are heading this way."

"Um... They're actually already here."

"What the hell?" A woman's alien voice rang through the courtyard like a gunshot, and with the same effect. The music died. I could feel Raven's mind dimming with surprise, and a sense of foreboding.

Oh dear. I put on what I imagined to be my best innocent face.

"What are you doing? Who destroyed the statue?"

"It was Alex," Sean blurted. Alex's mind flared with annoyance.

Raven then burst in; curiosity overtook me, and I hopped behind Charles' eyes, hopeful that I might be able to observe what was unfolding. Raven stood confidently, eyes shining, as she rebuked the unknown woman. "No, Havok. We have to call him Havok. That's his name now." She turned to look me – no, Charles – directly in the eye. "And we were thinking, you," she pointed at Charles, "should be Professor X and you," she pointed to Erik who was stood beside Charles, looking unimpressed, "should be Magneto."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Exceptional."

Raven's face dropped – I wasn't sure if it was because of Erik, or the sudden waves of embarrassment and disappointment making themselves known on Charles' face. He glared at Raven. "I expect more from you."

Then he turned to walk away with the others. I caught a glimpse of the woman; she wore a skirt suit, with short brown hair and cold, gunmetal eyes. I noted the angry pull of her eyebrows before Charles roughly shoved me from his mind. _Ask next time_ , he snapped.

I felt hurt. Surely I need not ask, not with him anyway. We were the same. The air around me throbbed with the frightened purple of confused thoughts and unspoken questions; suddenly I longed to be alone. I couldn't stand how suddenly restricted I felt, my own mind hemmed in by so many others that were so much stronger and brighter than what I was used to.

I brushed Raven's mind, wincing as she flinched back. "I think I might go and get some sleep. It's been a long day. Do you know where... if..." I tailed off uncertainly.

"What, if we have rooms?" She brightened a little. "Yeah. I'll take you up, if you like!"

"Thanks," I mumbled, and trailed after her, too embarrassed to ask for any sort of assistance. The going, however, wasn't as bad as I'd expected; the corridors were narrow enough that I could trail a hand along one wall and know that the other was only a few feet from my fingertips. So long as I kept the throbbing candle-flame of Raven's mind in sight, I could feel where I was going. Two lefts and three rights, then a long corridor followed by a steep flight of stairs that clanked with an air of menace under my hesitant feet.

Eventually we reached a door, and Raven cracked it open. "I think this one's yours... Is your bag green?"

"Um... It has a really chunky zip?" Oh, if only she were gone and I could make my own way...

"Then this one's yours. Number 12." She hovered a little, mind shifting through various sentences she could say, all of which made me cringe. I smiled in the sort of way that suggested this conversation was over, and she need make no effort, and was rewarded with the cool breeze of her relief. "Oh, well, goodnight!"

"Thanks," I said, and quickly retreated into my room before she decided that she had more to say. Her footsteps receded into the distance until... nothing. Not silence; my ears could pick up the exhilarated thump of my heart, the endless whine of air conditioners, the familiar push and whistle that one can only hear when it's quiet. I could still feel them downstairs, a grouped mass of light and humming emotion, but the distance between us reduced it to a comfortable murmur. I didn't try to reach for Charles again; I knew he was there, a golden smudge out there in the blackness, but its faint warmth no longer felt friendly but searing, a flame that happily bites the finger it's meant to warm.

Wordlessly, I traced the room around me. Circuit after circuit built up a rudimentary sensory map. It was probably about ten foot square; a desk was placed right next to the door, so I had to manoeuvre myself carefully around it. Then there was a blank space of wall, a corner, and then the bottom of a bed. Feeling my way around to the top, I discovered the head faced the window, beneath which was a small chest of drawers, and beside that a wardrobe. Another walk revealed a smooth door set into the wall. I went through, and noticed the sudden nose-twitching sting of soap and bleach. Ah. A bathroom.

A little clumsily, I retreated to the bed. At home, I barely tripped – perhaps now and then, when I was in a hurry, and always on the stairs, although they'd been designed with making life difficult for everyone anyway – since I knew it so well. Every curve and fall, every fold in the carpet, every scratch upon the wall which signalled a doorway three steps away, the sweep of the banister and the strange velvet quality of the curtains that left my fingertips itching. But here was strange. I had been casually tossed from the security of my own bubble, and frankly I didn't like it one bit. The walls felt too heavy and rough; the wood of the bed lacked the curious texture of whorls and knots that I often enjoyed tracing before drifting into sleep; the curtains were thin and I worried that should I pull them too hard they might rip. Nothing was right, and my body screamed it. Too bad there was nothing I could do.

I lay back, and sighed. Even the pillows were wrong. All wrong. Nonetheless, I budged my bag aside, tugged half the duvet over me, and closed my eyes. All about me, faint spots of light drifted like dust motes suspended in a beam of light, like a fragile constellation suspended on silver thread, each star tugging and tangling itself in the darkness, flickering, jumping, occasionally flushing to darker, nameless colours with a thrill of quavering notes. Excitement, I sensed, even from here. A softer, far more snagging melody drifted past as someone somewhere mentally hummed to themselves.

It was a little like drifting in open water; if I let my mind hang wide open, spread inquisitive antennae into the murky depths, then I caught all sorts of odd jetsam thoughts on the tide. Only briefly; for a moment they'd be there, and then with the flick of a quicksilver tail they'd be gone once more on some silent voyage – I knew not where.

It was with a warm sense of recognition that I slowly fell into sleep, no longer aware of the grating texture of the pillows, or the close push of the walls, only happy in floating, flying, where I knew I could truly _be_.


End file.
